1,350 Comments

1. April 6, 2022 at 9:37 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne
   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7?error=cookies_not_supported&code=c1e4d5bc-9fe0-4200-b1a7-265ddaa178e2&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=nature&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1649257475

   Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. That mistake and the prolonged process of correcting it sowed confusion and raises questions about what will happen in the next pandemic.

   The seemingly uncontroversial statement marked a clear shift for the Switzerland-based WHO, which had tweeted categorically early in the pandemic, “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” casting the negative in capital letters as if to remove any doubt. At that time, the agency maintained that the virus spreads mainly through droplets produced when a person coughs, sneezes or speaks, an assumption based on decades-old infection-control teachings about how respiratory viruses generally pass from one person to another. The guidance recommended distancing of more than one metre — within which these droplets were thought to fall to the ground — along with hand washing and surface disinfection to stop transfer of droplets to the eyes, nose and mouth.

   It took until 20 October 2020 for the agency to acknowledge that aerosols — tiny specks of fluid — can transmit the virus, but the WHO said this was a concern only in specific settings, such as indoor, crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces. Over the next six months, the agency gradually altered its advice to say that aerosols could carry the virus for more than a metre and remain in the air (see ‘Changing views of how COVID spreads’).

   But this latest tweak is the WHO’s clearest statement yet about airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. And it places the virus among a select group of ‘airborne’ infections, a label long reserved for just a handful of the world’s most virulent pathogens, including measles, chickenpox and tuberculosis.

   The change brings the WHO’s messaging in line with what a chorus of aerosol and public-health experts have been trying to get it to say since the earliest days of the outbreak. Many decry the agency’s slowness in stating — unambiguously — that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne.

   For example, even in the middle of the fast-moving epidemic, the WHO dismissed field epidemiology reports as proof of airborne transmission because the evidence was not definitive, something that is difficult to achieve quickly during an outbreak. Other criticisms are that the WHO relies on a narrow band of experts, many of whom haven’t studied airborne transmission, and that it eschews a precautionary approach that could have protected countless people in the early stages of the pandemic.

   Critics say that inaction at the agency led to national and local health agencies around the world being similarly sluggish in addressing the airborne threat. Having shifted its position incrementally over the past two years, the WHO also failed to adequately communicate its changing position, they say. As a result, it didn’t emphasize early enough and clearly enough the importance of ventilation and indoor masking, key measures that can prevent airborne spread of the virus.

   doesn’t think that confusion over whether the virus is airborne has had a defining impact on how the pandemic has played out. “It’s not the cause of the catastrophe we’ve seen,” he says.

   Some other researchers defend the agency’s response, given the rapidly evolving situation. “I really don’t think anybody dropped the ball, including WHO,” says Mitchell Schwaber, an infectious-diseases physician at Israel’s ministry of health and an external adviser to the WHO. “So many assumptions that we had about this virus were proven false. We always, we always were learning new things.”

   Resolving this debate about how to assess the transmission of respiratory viruses matters, say researchers, because a more deadly variant of SARS-CoV-2 could emerge at any time, and new respiratory viruses will almost certainly plague humanity at some point. It’s not clear whether the WHO and the world will be ready.

   especially in the early days, the concerns brought to the WHO about airborne transmission were “largely unfounded” and lacked credible evidence, such as the isolation of infectious virus particles from air samples. Epidemiological data from outbreak investigations were “especially weak”

   Throughout 2020, there was also mounting evidence that indoor spaces posed a much greater risk of infection than outdoor environments did. An analysis of reported outbreaks recorded up to the middle of August 2020 revealed that people were more than 18 times as likely to be infected indoors as outdoors3. If heavy droplets or dirty hands had been the main vehicles for transmitting the virus, such a strong discrepancy would not have been observed.

   Still, Li is disappointed that it took the WHO until October 2020 to acknowledge that aerosols play a part in disease transmission in community settings. And in its updated guidelines on mask use, in December 2020, the agency still emphasized shortfalls and gaps in the evidence for aerosol transmission, and the need for more “high quality research” to understand the specifics of how the virus spreads. It wasn’t until the end of April 2021 that long-range aerosol transmission was added to a question-and-answer section on the agency’s website about how the virus spreads. And the term airborne wasn’t officially added until December 2021.

   Conservative approach
   Some scientists note that the WHO’s decision to classify SARS-CoV-2 as airborne, belated as it was, is momentous. That’s because it flies in the face of the established view of respiratory virus transmission that held sway when the pandemic began — that nearly all infectious diseases are spread by droplets, not through the air. And researchers say that this change is particularly important because the organization generally takes a conservative approach. “What the WHO says is normally based on a consensus of expert advice and opinion,”

   And although the WHO has drawn strong criticism for the way in which it assessed SARS-CoV-2 transmission, some researchers don’t find the agency’s response surprising. The international community looks to the WHO for early warnings of disease outbreaks. But when it comes to science, the agency “sees its role as certifying the current expert consensus, not (usually) advancing new, tentative knowledge”, says Peter Sandman,

   Schwaber says: “Individuals and governments and public-health bodies are looking to a WHO GDG, not to conjecture. They’re looking to a WHO GDG to put out guidance. That everything that we say can be backed by evidence.”

   The WHO frequently gets attacked, “so you can understand how they’d be risk averse”

   Frieden is critical of some aspects of the WHO’s pandemic response, including how slow it was to recommend the use of masks. But he says that the agency is in a difficult position during health crises.

   In 2009, for instance, it was accused of being alarmist over the H1N1 swine influenza outbreak that petered out with few lives lost. “WHO got hit hard for that,”

   the WHO treads a difficult line, and tends to be quite conservative in its recommendations to avoid putting out information that later proves to be incorrect. “You can’t be backtracking” on advice, adds Fisher, because “then you lose complete credibility”.

   In practice, applying the precautionary approach to the question of how SARS-CoV-2 — or any newly emerged pathogen — is transmitted would mean initially assuming that all routes of transmission are possible. “That should be your starting point, and then you can strike out routes if you’re sure,” says Loomans.

   But Schwaber says that this approach carries risks. “To say, well, the best interests of the patient and the best interests of the health-care worker involve invoking the precautionary principle would also imply that there’s no downside to invoking it,” he says. Taking full precautions against airborne transmission would require major changes at hospitals, such as using negative-air-pressure isolation rooms and uncomfortable N95 masks for all staff and visitors. Such changes need to be weighed against the evidence that they are required, he says.

   Sobsey says that the WHO did adopt the precautionary principle, in part because of the advice from aerosol scientists. That’s why, he says, the agency stated in July 2020 that airborne transmission couldn’t be ruled out — and why it started placing more emphasis on ventilation as a protective measure, even though the evidence for airborne transmission was weak at the time.

   “They are not totally wrong,”

   Communication problems
   One thing that’s still missing, says Jimenez, is a clear communication campaign from the WHO. Its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, acknowledged the challenges in his opening remarks at the agency’s global conference on communicating science during health emergencies, on 7 June 2021. “Scientific processes, decision-making in an emergency context and mass communication do not fit together easily,” Tedros said, adding that “high-quality research takes time, but time is something we don’t have in an emergency”.

   During the early months of the pandemic, the WHO was fighting battles on other fronts. While it grappled with shortages of protective equipment and ventilators, it was also contending with misinformation about unproven treatments for COVID-19 and US threats to pull its funding from the organization.

   But critics say that even two years into the pandemic, the WHO hasn’t clearly communicated the risks from airborne transmission. And, perhaps as a result, governments around the world spent much of the pandemic focusing on hand washing and surface cleaning, instead of ventilation and indoor masking.

   “The cacophony of changing messages has undoubtedly contributed greatly to resistance to masks and other measures,” says Jimenez.

   On 15 December 2021, less than two weeks before the latest change in wording on the WHO’s website, Jimenez put out a call on Twitter for evidence of how governments and organizations either “don’t know how to protect their citizens, or use @WHO’s ambiguity to avoid doing so”. He enumerated more than 100 examples in which health advice at the time was at odds with airborne precautions, indicating that the message was not filtering out from the agency.

   “To say that COVID was definitively not airborne unfortunately meant there was a massive hill to climb to undo that,” she says. Right from the beginning, the WHO and other public-health authorities and governments should have emphasized that SARS-CoV-2 was a new coronavirus, and that guidelines would inevitably change, she says. “And when they do, it’s a good thing because it means we know more.”

   “We’re really talking here about two failures, not one,” says Sandman. “Being reluctant to change your mind, and being reluctant to tell people you changed your mind.” Like other public-health and scientific organizations, the WHO “are afraid of losing credibility by acknowledging that they got something wrong”, he says.

   But when Lanard worked with the WHO in 2005 to draft its risk-communications guidelines, one tenet that she advocated — to admit mistakes and errors when they occur — was removed from the final draft. She says that there were good reasons behind that decision, including that health officials in some countries could have faced imprisonment — or worse — if they had promoted information from the WHO that turned out to be incorrect. Officials and scientific advisers in several countries have received death threats during the pandemic. “Inevitably you’ll get it wrong sometimes,” says Frieden. And the WHO is in a position that means “whatever they do, they get attacked”, he says.

   On the science front, questions remain about how much of COVID-19 transmission is airborne. Sobsey says that researchers still need to come up with evidence that the airborne route makes “an important contribution to the overall disease burden”. Many on the other side of the aisle, such as Jimenez, are convinced that airborne transmission predominates.

   The US Office of Science and Technology Policy voiced strong support for this view on 23 March, when its head, Alondra Nelson, issued a statement called ‘Let’s Clear the Air on COVID’, which said “the most common way COVID-19 is transmitted from one person to another is through tiny airborne particles of the virus hanging in indoor air for minutes or hours after an infected person has been there.”

   Other viruses long suspected of being airborne — including influenza and common cold viruses — will also be scrutinized.

   In the WHO, too, attitudes have shifted, according to Sobsey. “I think there’s been a sea change in thinking at WHO as a consequence of the experience with this virus,” he says, “which is — be more precautionary, even if you’re not sure.”

   Reply
2. April 7, 2022 at 8:29 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   On April 18, the federal mask mandate for public transportation is due to expire. The airline industry has been pushing the Biden administration to end the mandate, but multiple public surveys suggest that the majority of Americans are still not quite ready to see it go. The Harris Poll reports six out of 10 Americans support extending the mask mandate. https://trib.al/zzvbuHq

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3. April 8, 2022 at 8:33 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Vitamin D, a tale of two studies
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_CUmG6n3M

   Vitamin D Supplements for Prevention of Covid-19 or other Acute Respiratory Infections: a Phase 3 Randomized Controlled Trial (CORONAVIT)

   Vitamin D Supplements for Prevention of Covid-19 or other Acute Respiratory Infections: a Phase 3 Randomized Controlled Trial (CORONAVIT)
   https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.22.22271707v1

   Trial of Vitamin D to Reduce Risk and Severity of COVID-19 and Other Acute Respiratory Infections (CORONAVIT)
   https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04579640

   CONCLUSIONS

   Implementation of a test-and-treat approach to correcting sub-optimal vitamin D status in the U.K. population was safe and effective in boosting 25(OH)D concentrations of adults with baseline concentrations less than 75 nmol/L.

   However, this was not associated with protection against all-cause ARI or Covid-19.

   Incidence of hospitalization for ARI was low, and we therefore lacked power to detect an effect of the intervention on severity of Covid-19 and other ARIs.

   Reply
4. April 8, 2022 at 8:56 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   RC Lawn Mower – RCTESTFLIGHT
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iPVCrq2_Ss

   Reply
5. April 8, 2022 at 10:50 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Hurja väite ja vaatimus korona-asiantuntijaryhmän jäseneltä – ylilääkäri: ”voitaisiinko tällä todella oleellisesti estää tartuntaketjuja?”
   Koronan sairastaminen aiheuttaa aivojen rakenteissa muutoksia, mutta näiden muutosten merkitystä tai kestoa ei vielä tiedetä.
   https://www.iltalehti.fi/terveysuutiset/a/275200fc-f59a-483b-bdec-10b4c4fd5a6a

   Neurotieteilijä väittää mielipidekirjoituksessaan, että kovan tason tutkimuksen mukaan koronan sairastaminen vanhentaa aivoja keskimäärin 10 vuotta.
   Neurologian professorin mukaan väite ei ole perusteltu.
   Se lienee varmaa, että koronan sairastaminen vaikuttaa aivoihin, mutta on vielä epäselvää, mitä kaikkea voi tapahtua ja kuinka kauan vaikutus kestää.

   Jokainen lieväoireinenkin koronatartunta vanhentaa aivoja keskimäärin kymmenen vuotta. Näin väittää neurotieteilijä, solubiologian dosentti Pirta Hotulainen Helsingin Sanomien julkaisemassa mielipidekirjoituksessa.

   Hotulaisen mukaan koronan aiheuttaman aivojen vanhenemisen osoittaa korkeatasoinen Nature-lehden julkaisema tutkimus.

   – Kyseessä on Hotulaisen oma käsitys. Väite ei ole perusteltu. Tiede ei ole ihan näin yksinkertaista, kommentoi neurologian professori Risto O. Roine.

   Tutkimuksessa vertailtiin lähes 800 henkilön hyvin tarkkoja aivokuvia ennen ja jälkeen koronan sairastamisen. Tutkimus on Roineen mukaan saavuttanut suurta huomiota.

   – Pidän tutkimuksen tulosta luotettavana. Asia on kuitenkin monimutkaisempi kuin ensin voi vaikuttaa.

   Roine luonnehtii aivojen tilavuudessa mitattuja eroja karkean tason mittariksi.

   – Jotain mitattavaa aivoissa tapahtuu koronassa, se nyt tiedetään. Toistaiseksi emme kuitenkaan tiedä esimerkiksi sitä, miten nämä muutokset ovat kehittyneet, miten pysyviä muutokset ovat ja korreloivatko aivomuutokset oireiden pitkittymiseen.

   Nature-lehdessä julkaistussa tutkimuksessa kuvattiin koronapotilaiden aivoja aivan pandemian alussa. Silloin tautia aiheuttivat koronaviruksen varhaiset variantit.

   – Tämä tutkimus ei kerro mitään siitä, mitä muutoksia esimerkiksi nyt vallalla oleva omikronvariantti saa aivoissa aikaan, Roine sanoo.

   Koronan tautitilanne on erilainen kuin kaksi vuotta sitten myös rokotteiden vuoksi. Rokotteet voivat antaa suojaa myös virustartunnan aiheuttamia aivomuutoksia vastaan.

   Olisi kiinnostavaa verrata koronan aiheuttamaa aivojen tilavuuden muutosta esimerkiksi influenssan mahdollisesti aiheuttamiin muutoksiin. Influenssan vaikutuksista ei kuitenkaan ole samanlaista tutkimusta tehty.

   Jokainen lieväoireinenkin koronatartunta vanhentaa aivoja keskimäärin kymmenen vuotta
   Tutkijat havaitsivat, että aivoista hävisi massaa enemmän kuin olisi hävinnyt normaalin vanhenemisen seurauksena.
   https://www.hs.fi/mielipide/art-2000008727297.html

   Reply
6. April 14, 2022 at 4:10 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   CHINA STRAPS LOUDSPEAKERS TO ROBOT DOG SO IT CAN SCREAM AT PEOPLE TO STAY HOME
   https://futurism.com/the-byte/china-loudspeakers-robot-dog-stay-home

   Reply
7. April 15, 2022 at 10:48 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   A Case Of Shrunken Brains: How Covid-19 May Damage Brain Cells
   https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/03/21/a-case-of-shrunken-brains-how-covid-19-may-damage-brain-cells/

   Reply
8. April 15, 2022 at 7:19 pm

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   A Case Of Shrunken Brains: How Covid-19 May Damage Brain Cells
   https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/03/21/a-case-of-shrunken-brains-how-covid-19-may-damage-brain-cells/

   Comparing brain volume before and after individuals were exposed to SARS-CoV-2, this study documents significant cortical gray matter loss, equivalent to nearly 10 years of aging. Gweanaelle Douaud, the study’s first author and Professor at the University of Oxford, says that infected individuals display structural “differences over time above and beyond any potential baseline differences.” Most strikingly, individuals that experienced no or only mild symptoms with Covid-19 displayed specifically significant changes, but cortical damage seems to occur regardless of disease severity, age, or sex. The effect of vaccination status not yet been investigated. It may be years before the long-term consequences of these structural differences are fully understood.

   Reply
9. April 21, 2022 at 5:19 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   A study examined the impact of antidepressants on Covid-19 hospitalizations.

   Common Antidepressant Likely Cuts Risk Of Covid Hospitalization, Study Finds
   https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/04/06/common-antidepressant-likely-cuts-risk-of-covid-hospitalization-study-finds/

   Fluvoxamine, a cheap and widely available pill used around the world to treat mental illness, is very likely to reduce the risk of being hospitalized with Covid-19, according to new peer reviewed research published in JAMA Network Open, opening up another possible treatment option for the disease using a medicine with a decades-long track record.

   Based on an analysis of data from three different clinical trials, the researchers said there is a “high probability” fluvoxamine was associated with “at least a moderate reduction in Covid-19 hospitalizations.”

   The trials, which enrolled a total of nearly 2,200 unvaccinated Covid-positive patients from the U.S., Brazil and Canada, evaluated how well 100mg of fluvoxamine taken twice a day reduced the risk of being hospitalized with the disease.

   The analysis, coupled with the fact that fluvoxamine is “immediately available, safe and inexpensive” around the world, makes the drug a “reasonable option for high-risk outpatients” who don’t have access to other Covid treatments like antiviral drugs or monoclonal antibodies, the researchers said.

   However, they stressed it is important clinical trials examining fluvoxamine continue to bolster the results, especially those studying lower doses of the drug and how effective it is in vaccinated individuals.

   A similar and widely available antidepressant, fluoxetine, should also be studied for its potential to treat Covid-19, the researchers said.

   The researchers noted that circulating Covid variants varied between studies and all predated omicron and delta variants, which could affect the baseline levels of risk and any reduction calculated.

   Reply
10. April 24, 2022 at 3:11 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Anti-Covid Pill Coming To All U.S. Pharmacies Under Reported Biden Plan
    https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fzacharysmith%2F2022%2F04%2F22%2Fanti-covid-pill-coming-to-all-us-pharmacies-under-reported-biden-plan%2F%3Futm_campaign%3Dforbes%26utm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_term%3DGordie&h=AT14OqDqdxcGC2xHKX_5FcNAOuOR6SIUYqju9x1CpsUHyahvgM00HuN7snYe_MG-tKMrsw3h3X0Ymb6Eh4k8tS9zAeZDeK-fnmegZZzf71Zu9TDsHfcyWW10RQdSWIxt0A

    The Biden Administration is working on a plan to make Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral pill Paxlovid available across the U.S. following shortages of the lifesaving drug, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing an unnamed administration official.

    Reply
11. May 15, 2022 at 9:04 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Smell loss from Covid-19 has been linked to depression symptoms and dementia, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University said.

    Omicron May Be Less Likely To Cause Smell Loss Than Other Covid Variants, Researchers Say
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/05/10/omicron-may-be-less-likely-to-cause-smell-loss-than-other-covid-variants-researchers-say/?utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainFB&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ForbesMainFacebook&sh=2482c4e74016

    Reply
12. June 13, 2022 at 12:42 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hackaday.com/2022/06/12/hackaday-links-june-12-2022/

    And finally, from the, “Oh, hell no!” files, we present this automated nose-probing robot. The Korean nasopharyngeal sampling robot, obviously built to aid with COVID testing, is billed as “inherently safe.” While we can see that a small, lightweight robot with built-in force sensors would be much safer than a big general-purpose industrial robot for such a delicate task, we won’t be lining up to help prove it anytime soon. Although we have to say, we’ve heard enough horror stories about testing to believe that human swabbers are sometimes overworked, undertrained, or just plain pissed-off enough to do some real damage, so getting the human element out of testing might not be a bad idea.

    An Inherently Safe NP Swab Sampling Robot for COVID-19
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ymRmeUqK78

    [Specifications and Advantages]
    - 3 DOF (RCM, swab insertion, swab rotation)
    - Nonsingular RCM mechanism (-45~90 deg)
    - Extremely small distal mass (35 g)
    - Mechanical compliance with accurate limit force (0.5 N)
    - Automatic swab releasing mechanism for recapping

    [Further works]
    - Complete the entire system considering vial capping and sanitization.
    - Apply face and nostril detection algorithms.
    - Develop a safety algorithm using the force sensor.
    - Perform the clinical tests.
    - Most of all, make it less scary

    Reply
13. June 24, 2022 at 10:00 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Fatal Flaw of the Pulse Oximeter Racial bias led to faulty product design led to its inability to work properly with melanin-rich skin
    https://spectrum.ieee.org/pulse-oximeters-encode-racial-bias-with-clear-consequences-for-covid-19-patients?share_id=7108656

    If someone is seeking medical care, the color of their skin shouldn’t matter. But, according to new research, pulse oximeters’s performance and accuracy apparently hinges on it. Inaccurate blood oxygen measurements, in other words, made by pulse oximeters have had clear consequences for people of color during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “That device ended up being essentially a gatekeeper for how we treat a lot of these patients,”

    For decades, scientists have found that pulse oximeters, devices which estimate blood oxygen saturation, can be affected by a person’s skin color. In 2021, the FDA issued a warning about this limitation of pulse oximeters. The agency says they plan to hold a meeting on pulse oximeters later this year. Because low oxygen saturation, called hypoxemia, is a common symptom of COVID-19, while low blood oxygen levels qualify patients to receive certain medications. In the first study to examine this issue among COVID-19 patients, published in JAMA Internal Medicine in May, researchers found that the inaccurate measurements resulted in a “systemic failure,” delaying care for many Black and Hispanic patients, and in some cases, preventing them from receiving proper medications. The study adds a growing sense of urgency to an issue raised decades ago.

    Pulse oximeters work by passing light through part of the body, usually a finger. These devices infer a patient’s blood-oxygen saturation (i.e. the percentage of hemoglobin carrying oxygen) from the absorption of light by hemoglobin, the pigment in blood that carries oxygen. In theory, pulse oximeters shouldn’t be impacted by anything other than the levels of oxygen in the blood. But research has shown otherwise.

    “If you have melanin, which is the pigment that’s responsible for skin color… that could potentially affect the transmittance of the light going through the skin,”

    The researchers found that the pulse oximeter overestimated blood oxygen saturation by an average of 1.7 percent for Asian patients, 1.2 percent for Black patients, and 1.1 percent for Hispanic patients.

    To qualify for COVID-19 treatment with remdesivir, an antiviral drug, and dexamethasone, a steroid, patients had to have a blood oxygen saturation of 94 percent or less. Based on the researchers’ model, nearly 30 percent of the 6,673 patients they had enough information about to predict their arterial blood gas measurements met this cutoff. Many of these patients, most of whom were Black or Hispanic, had their treatment delayed for between five and seven hours, with Black patients being delayed on average one hour more than white patients.

    “We found that in Black and Hispanic patients, there was a significant delay in identifying severe COVID compared to white patients,”

    There were 451 patients who never qualified for treatments but that the researchers predicted likely should have; 55 percent were Black, while 27 percent were Hispanic.

    The study “shows how urgent it is to move away from pulse [oximeters],”

    Studies finding that skin color can impact pulse oximeters go back as far as the 1980s. Despite knowledge of the issue, there are few ways of addressing it. Wu says increasing awareness helps, and that it also may be helpful to more do more arterial blood gas analyses.

    A long-term solution will require changing the technology

    Although the problem of the racial bias of pulse oximeters has no immediate solution, said the researchers, they are confident the primary hurdle is not technological.

    “We do believe that technology exists to fix this problem, and that would ultimately be the most equitable solution for everybody,” said Wu.

    Reply
14. June 25, 2022 at 6:52 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    ‘Racially biased’ devices caused delayed treatment for Black COVID-19 patients
    Pulse oximeters overestimated blood oxygen levels in minorities
    https://www.science.org/content/article/racially-biased-devices-caused-delayed-treatment-black-covid-19-patients

    COVID-19 treatment for Black patients was delayed because of inaccurate blood oxygen measurements from “racially biased” medical instruments, STAT reports. Pulse oximeters, which indirectly measure oxygen saturation levels using light that passes through blood in a fingertip, are widely used but have been criticized before because they can give erroneous measurements in darker skinned patients.

    In a study published on 31 May in JAMA, researchers analyzed data from more than 7000 COVID-19 patients who were treated in five hospitals in Baltimore between 2020 and 2021. They found that, compared with white patients, pulse oximeters overestimated blood oxygen levels by 1.2% for Black patients, 1.1% among Hispanic patients, and 1.7% for Asian patients. Although small, these differences were significant, STAT notes, because Black and Hispanic patients were 29% and 23%, respectively, less likely than white patients to be recognized as eligible for COVID-19 medications. Black patients whose eligibility was eventually confirmed by pulse oximeters had treatment delayed by an average of 1 hour, compared with white patients, the JAMA study found.

    Pulse oximeters without the known racial bias are available, but are not commonly used yet. A JAMA commentary urged their adoption. “Although the device measurement error is real and based purely on optics, the decision to do nothing about a faulty device is a human one, and one that can and should be corrected,” its authors said.

    Faulty oxygen readings delayed Covid treatments for darker-skinned patients, study finds
    https://www.statnews.com/2022/05/31/faulty-oxygen-readings-delayed-covid-treatments-darker-skin-patients/

    Widely used pulse oximeters, which measure oxygen levels by assessing the color of the blood, have been under increasing scrutiny for racial bias because they can overestimate blood oxygen levels in darker-skinned individuals and make them appear healthier than they actually are. A 2020 study comparing oxygen levels measured by the devices with readings taken from “gold standard” arterial blood samples found pulse oximeters were three times less likely to detect low oxygen levels in Black patients than in white patients.

    The study provided evidence that undetected low oxygen levels led to delays in Black and Hispanic patients receiving potentially lifesaving therapies such as the drugs remdesivir and dexamethasone, and in many cases, led to patients not receiving treatment at all.

    “These are likely patients who were seen in emergency rooms and sent home,” said Tianshi David Wu, an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-lead author of the new study. He called pulse oximeters “de facto gatekeepers” for Covid treatment because low readings on these devices are key criteria for deciding how aggressively patients should be treated. “There are patients that probably should have had these therapies, and the majority were Black patients.”

    The authors, both pulmonary critical care physicians who have been treating Covid patients, said they were motivated to determine whether the inaccuracies in readings were clinically relevant because they felt many physicians — despite the fact that concerns about bias in pulse oximeters have been raised in the scientific literature for decades — remained unaware of how the inaccuracies in these critically important diagnostic devices might impact patients of color. The issue has not been part of standard medical school curricula, they said.

    For Covid, drug treatments are indicated when oxygen levels fall below 94%, yet the study showed many patients had blood oxygen levels below that level, despite what their pulse oximeters read. “It’s a good illustration of how a relatively small bias in accuracy can have a large effect,” said Wu.

    Black patients whose eligibility for Covid treatment was eventually confirmed by pulse oximetry had treatment delayed by an hour, compared to white patients, the researchers found. (Patients who never received treatment were not included in this accounting.) Wu said it was not clear if that delay was clinically significant.

    The study is an excellent addition to accumulating evidence that the inaccuracies in these devices are taking a large toll

    Previous studies have shown that undetected low oxygen rates can lead to sequential organ failure and death in patients of color, but those studies were not conducted specifically on Covid patients as the new study was.

    “We’ve been searching for reasons Black and Hispanic people were more likely to die early in the pandemic,” Valley said. “This is pretty depressing that we had treatments available, many of those treatments tied to oxygen levels. Decisions on whether or not people were admitted to hospitals or put on ventilators, those were all based on blood oxygen levels.”

    “We were recommending that all the time, ‘If your O2 levels are not low, don’t come to the hospital,’” he said. “We don’t know how much harm that caused.”

    He said options for getting more accurate readings for darker-skinned patients, such as taking painful arterial blood samples when lighter-skinned patients can use a simple clip-on device for the same measurement, are “really just trading one bias for another.”

    “There is in my opinion only one fix,” he added. “We need pulse oximeters that work as well in Black patients as they do in white patients.” Many biomedical engineers have said that fixing the devices is not difficult technically; the issue is in getting the devices tested and approved, and having hospitals replace tens of thousands of the devices, which are more costly than the consumer versions.

    “The decision to do nothing about a faulty device is a human one,” the authors wrote, “and one that can and should be corrected.”

    Reply
15. June 28, 2022 at 7:43 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Despite countless buyout offers, Stefania Triva’s snubbing the dealmakers and keeping the company firmly in the family.

    Meet The Family-Owned Company That Invented Swabs For Covid Tests
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2022/02/06/meet-the-family-owned-company-that-invented-swabs-for-covid-tests/?utm_source=ForbesMainFacebook&utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainFB&utm_medium=social

    Swabs for Covid testing made Copan CEO Stefania Triva a billionaire. But, despite countless buyout offers, she’s snubbing the dealmakers and keeping the company firmly in the family.
    On a foggy early Janu­ary day in the northern Italian city of Brescia, which was hit hard by the first wave of Covid-19 in 2020, Stefania Triva, 57, sets out two swabs side by side on her desk. One is a regular cotton Q-tip, the other a special “flocked” swab, studded with tiny synthetic fibers that resemble split ends.

    That special swab—made by her family’s 43-year-old company, Copan—is the key element in hundreds of millions of Covid-19 PCR tests currently being plunged into noses around the world. Sitting in front of a large red-and-yellow abstract painting and a corkboard filled with photos of her three children, Triva delves into the subtle differences that make her flocked swabs the gold standard.

    “In a cotton swab, the fibers are twisted around the stick, creating a cage that traps the sample,” she says, pointing to the thickly wound Q-tip. “But it only releases 20% of that sample. In a flocked swab, thanks to the mechanics of how the fibers are attached to the stick, you have the opposite: 80% is released.”

    Those swabs—invented by Copan in 2003 and the subject of ongoing litigation with its leading rival, Maine-based Puritan Medical Products—have helped drive the company’s enormous growth; it manufactured 415 million of them in 2020, more than double the 2019 amount.

    After ramping up production, Copan now has the capacity to produce 1 billion a year. Net income nearly quintupled in 2020, to $79 million, on revenue of $372 million. It blew past that figure in 2021, with sales growing to $445 million. (Net income was not yet available at press time.) A full 84% of Copan’s sales come from flocked swabs, which have been used in at least a billion molecular tests conducted in doctor’s offices and clinics around the world since the beginning of the pandemic. (That figure doesn’t include swabs for rapid tests or at-home kits, a tiny fraction of Copan’s business.)

    “We love being free, eclectic and fast, knowing that we sometimes need to take calculated risks.”
    Stefania Triva

    Copan’s runaway success has attracted the attention of several investment funds—Triva won’t name them—but the daughter of the company’s founder has no intention of selling. “We receive offers almost every day,” she admits. Confirms her nephew and Copan’s 32-year-old heir apparent, Giorgio Triva: “We’re at a size similar to other firms being sought out by these funds.”

    The growth of the past two years means Copan can continue expanding while keeping ownership firmly within the family. “We love being free, eclectic and fast, knowing that we sometimes need to take calculated risks,” Triva says.

    Reply
16. July 7, 2022 at 9:41 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tiesitkö, että Helsingin Yliopistossa on kehitetty uudenlainen nenäsuihke, joka voisi toimia biologisena maskina koronavirusta vastaan? Tutkijatohtori Anna Mäkelän mukaan vastaavanlainen lääkinnällinen laite voisi tulevaisuudessa olla mahdollinen myös muille hengitysteiden kautta tarttuville virustaudeille, kuten influenssalle.

    Podcastissa kuulet lisää tästä suomalaisesta innovaatiosta. Live-podcast on kuunneltavissa suosituimmissa podcastpalveluissa (ÄLYcast) sekä linkin kautta (jakso 6.)

    https://dra.fi/fi/aly-2020/

    Reply
17. July 8, 2022 at 7:02 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hackaday.com/2022/07/07/the-benefits-of-displacement-ventilation/

    Reply
18. July 12, 2022 at 5:20 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hackaday.com/2022/07/06/ggwave-sings-the-songs-of-your-data/

    Reply
19. July 12, 2022 at 5:21 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://www.hackster.io/news/stefan-wagner-s-attiny-voice-changer-is-a-compact-open-source-toy-for-pitch-shifting-audio-c9f3ae46add9

    Reply
20. July 26, 2022 at 3:53 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Latest COVID Strain Can Cause “Strange” New Symptom At Night, Says Professor
    “That mix of your immune system and the virus being slightly different might give rise to a slightly different disease – with strangely enough – night sweats being a feature,” explained Professor Luke O’Neill.
    https://www.iflscience.com/latest-covid-strain-can-cause-strange-new-symptom-at-night-says-professor-64487

    Reply
21. August 17, 2022 at 4:43 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    The evidence points to the Huanan market.

    The COVID Lab Leak Theory Is Dead. Here’s How We Know The Virus Came From A Wuhan Market
    The evidence points to the Huanan market
    https://www.iflscience.com/the-covid-lab-leak-theory-is-dead-heres-how-we-know-the-virus-came-from-a-wuhan-market-64896

    Together, these papers paint a coherent evidence-based picture of what took place in the city of Wuhan during the latter part of 2019.

    The take-home message is the COVID pandemic probably did begin where the first cases were detected – at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.

    The Huanan market was the pandemic epicentre. From its origin there, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread to other locations in Wuhan in early 2020 and then to the rest of the world.

    The Huanan market is an indoor space about the size of two soccer fields. The word “seafood” in its name leaves a misleading impression of its function. When I visited the market in 2014, a variety of live wildlife was for sale including raccoon dogs and muskrats.

    Wildlife were also on sale in the Huanan market in 2019. After the Chinese authorities closed the market on January 1 2020, investigative teams swabbed surfaces, door handles, drains, frozen animals and so on.

    Most of the samples that later tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were from the south-western corner of the market. The wildlife I saw for sale on my visit in 2014 were in the south-western corner.

    This establishes a simple and plausible pathway for the virus to jump from animals to humans.

    The opportunity to find the direct animal host has probably passed. As the virus likely rapidly spread through its animal reservoir, it’s overly optimistic to think it would still be circulating in these animals today.

    The absence of a definitive animal source has been taken as tacit support for counter claims that SARS-CoV-2 in fact “leaked” from a scientific laboratory – the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    Death knell for the lab leak theory
    The lab leak theory rests on an unfortunate coincidence: that SARS-CoV-2 emerged in a city with a laboratory that works on bat coronaviruses.

    Some of these bat coronaviruses are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. But not close enough to be direct ancestors.

    Sadly, the focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology has distracted us from a far more important connection: that, like SARS-CoV-1 (which emerged in late 2002) before it, there’s a direct link between a coronavirus outbreak and a live animal market.

    For the lab leak theory to be true, SARS-CoV-2 must have been present in the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the pandemic started. This would convince me.

    But the inconvenient truth is there’s not a single piece of data suggesting this. There’s no evidence for a genome sequence or isolate of a precursor virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Not from gene sequence databases, scientific publications, annual reports, student theses, social media, or emails.

    Even the intelligence community has found nothing. Nothing. And there was no reason to keep any work on a SARS-CoV-2 ancestor secret before the pandemic.

    Despite political barriers and a salivating media, the evidence for a natural animal origin for SARS-CoV-2 has increased over the past two years.

    Reply
22. August 31, 2022 at 10:07 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Heikki Hiilamon kolumni: Korona-aika lietsoi professorikunnassa erikoisen ilmiön – tieteentekijät mestaroivat alalla, jota eivät tunne
    Suutari pysyköön lestissään, kehottaa vanha sananlasku. Samaa voisi suositella professorikunnalle. Korona-aika opetti, että kun tieteentekijä ryhtyy kansalaisaktiiviksi, lopputulos ei ole tiedettä.
    https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12597842?origin=rss

    Reply
23. September 10, 2022 at 12:03 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Masks for COVID: Updating the evidence
    https://www.fast.ai/2022/07/04/updated-masks-evidence/

    Danish study of surgical masks with “several design limitations” which “demonstrated only a modest benefit in limiting COVID-19 transmission”. The authors note that “laboratory studies have demonstrated the ability of surgical masks to block SARS-COV-2 and other viruses”, with the masks “60%–70% effective at protecting others and 50% effective at protecting the wearer”.

    “masks as a group had protective efficacy in excess of 80% against clinical influenza-like illness.”

    An observational study of Beijing households analyzed the impact of mask use in the community on COVID-19 transmission, finding that face masks were 79% effective in preventing transmission, if used by all household members prior to symptoms occurring.

    found that transmission was around 7.5 times higher in countries that did not have a mask mandate or universal mask use, a result similar to that found in an analogous study of fewer countries. Similar results were found by numerous other papers.

    A paper investigating an upper bound on one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles concludes that “face masks significantly reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to social distancing. We find a very low risk of infection when everyone wears a face mask, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly on the face.” They calculate that “social distancing alone, even at 3.0 m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes”, but that when both source and susceptible wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, there is only 0.4% after one hour of contact. They found that to achieve good fit it is important to mold the nose piece wire to the size of the nose, rather than leaving it in a sharp folded position.

    Reply
24. September 10, 2022 at 12:04 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Mask wearing in community settings reduces SARS-CoV-2 transmission
    https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2119266119

    Reply
25. September 21, 2022 at 7:59 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Open Source: Free As The Air You Breathe
    https://hackaday.com/2022/09/20/open-source-free-as-the-air-you-breathe/

    [Carolyn Barber] recently interviewed a 15-year-old who has been making Corsi-Rosenthal boxes for people in his community that are at risk for COVID. Not only is it great that a teenager has such community spirit, but it is also encouraging that [Richard Corsi] and [Jim Rosenthal] made an open-source design that can help people at a greatly reduced cost.

    Making Spaces Safer
    An easy-to-build box can help in the fight against COVID-19.
    https://news.eb.com/level2/making-spaces-safer/

    Reply
26. September 26, 2022 at 12:51 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Post-COVID-19 syndrome: retinal microcirculation as a potential marker for chronic fatigue
    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.23.22280264v1

    Post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) summarizes persisting sequelae after infection with the severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). PCS can affect patients of all covid-19 disease severities. As previous studies revealed impaired blood flow as a provoking factor for triggering PCS, it was the aim of the present study to investigate a potential association of self-reported chronic fatigue and retinal microcirculation in patients with PCS, potentially indicating an objective biomarker.

    Reply
27. September 30, 2022 at 8:49 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intranasal Vaccines: A Potential Off-Ramp For Coronavirus Pandemics
    https://hackaday.com/2022/09/29/intranasal-vaccines-a-potential-off-ramp-for-coronavirus-pandemics/

    An interesting and also annoying aspect about the human immune system is that it is not a neat, centralized system where you input an antigen pattern in one spot and suddenly every T and B lymphocyte in the body knows how to target an intruder. Generally, immunity stays confined to specific areas, such as the vascular and lymph system, as well as the intestinal and mucosal (nasal) parts of the body.

    The best outcome for a vaccine is when it both protects the individual, while also preventing further infections as part of so-called sterilizing immunity.

    This is where the current batch of commonly used SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are showing a major issue, as they do not provide significant immunity in the nasal passage’s mucosal tissues, even though this is where the virus initially infects a host, as well as where it replicates and infects others from. Here intranasal vaccines may achieve what OPV did for polio.

    Going For The Gut Punch

    Logically, targeting intranasal (IN) vaccines to address a coronavirus makes a lot of sense, since coronaviruses are among a group of viruses implicated in e.g. the common cold. Like rhino- and adenoviruses, they are viruses which are strongly adapted to the respiratory system, much like how the polio virus prefers the intestinal tract. Because of this knowledge, multiple intranasal vaccines have been developed and approved, most recently in India and China.

    The Chinese vaccine is developed by CanSino Biologics, and it is essentially the same as the regular viral vector-based intramuscular (IM) vaccine, except in a form that allows it to be inhaled in a nebulizer. It is approved for use as a booster after a primary IM-based vaccination course.

    The Indian vaccine (BBV154), produced by Bharat Biotech, is intended as a two-dose IN vaccination, rather than only as a booster. Both the CanSino and Bharat vaccines are based on a non-replicating adenovirus vector, which means that no special vaccine formulation is needed for the nebulized form. Upon inhalation of the nebulized vaccine, the adenovirus vector will simply do what it naturally does: get into mucosal cells to deposit its genetic payload.

    These IN vaccines join the Iranian Razi Cov Pars vaccine (three-dose recombinant protein subunit-based with IN booster), which received emergency use authorization in Iran on October 31st of 2021. While large-scale efficacy data is not available yet for any of these vaccines, a recent US study in mice has confirmed that a viral vector-based vaccine can induce robust immunity. In a 2021 study by Van Doremalen et al. using the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19/AZD1222 (AstraZeneca) viral vector it was found that IN vaccination of hamsters and macaques prevented large-scale infection and significantly reduced the mucosal viral load.

    These findings are essentially why scientists in the West are pushing for IN vaccines to be made available, with some US scientists, including Scripps Research’s Eric Topol, calling for an IN equivalent of the Operation Warp Speed (OWS) which originally produced the IM vaccines that have been in use in Europe and North America since late 2020. The hope is that an approved IN vaccine in the West may counteract the continued spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus amidst waning efficacy of the IM vaccines against new virus variants.

    An aspect of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is becoming ever more pertinent is the collection of chronic conditions referred to as ‘Long COVID’, which includes blood clots (Knight et al., 2022) and negative neurologic outcomes (Xu et al., 2022). Notable with such Long COVID cases is that it was not necessary for the patient to exhibit severe COVID-19 symptoms, nor to have been hospitalized.

    Although an infection with SARS-CoV-2 provides convalescent immunity (i.e. from fighting off an infection) within the mucosal tissues, this immunity fades over time, much like the immunity provided by SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Since each infection comes with the risk of permanent damage (and death), the ideal way forward would seem to be to have an IN booster twice a year (matching the ~6 month fall-off in efficacy), that may provide sterilizing immunity.

    Making IN Vaccines Work

    Despite what one may think with already three IN vaccines in use with (emergency) authorization, IN vaccines are not very common. Perhaps the most well-known attempt dates from before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, in the form of the FluMist vaccine (LAIV) which to this date is the only FDA-approved IN vaccine. This flu vaccine is notable for using attenuated influenza virus, rather than the inactivated virus of IM flu vaccines, and provides efficacy comparable to IM flu vaccines. Its main attractiveness is that it avoids the use of needles, and does not require trained personnel to administer the vaccine.

    What is challenging with testing IN vaccines is the lack of standardized tests for mucosal immunity. This is largely due to IN not having received much attention, which makes running large-scale trials of such vaccines and assessing their efficacy largely unexplored territory for many regulators. Even so, AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical companies are currently running trials for IN SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

    Whether or not an IM vaccine can be adapted to work as an IN vaccine mostly depends on the type. The sub-unit type of vaccine (e.g. Razi Cov Pars) likely requires an adjuvant in order to create a strong enough response, while adenovirus-based IM vaccines can basically be used as-is, since as noted earlier, adenoviruses naturally infect mucosal tissue. For e.g. the AstraZeneca IN vaccine trials that are currently ongoing, the challenge would seem to be mostly in defining the efficacy, in the absence of clear protocols and techniques.

    Reply
28. October 14, 2022 at 1:52 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    STT: THL ei halua neljättä rokotuskierrosta työikäisille
    Ylilääkäri Hanna Nohynek THL:stä sanoo, ettei neljänsistä rokotuksista työikäiselle aikuisväestölle olisi olennaista hyötyä.
    https://www.iltalehti.fi/koronavirus/a/9e31eff4-9027-4134-a274-72d8a126ad5f

    Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos (THL) ei lähtisi laajentamaan koronarokotusten neljättä kierrosta työikäisiin. Asiasta uutisoi STT.

    ”Pelkästään se, että haluaa rokotteen, ei riitä”

    – Ymmärrämme toiveen, että haluttaisiin lisätehoja. Lääketieteellinen näyttö siitä, että lisätehoa merkitsevästi saataisiin perusterveelle kolme rokoteannosta jo saaneelle työikäiselle aikuiselle, on kuitenkin aika marginaalista, kommentoi THL:n ylilääkäri Hanna Nohynek STT:lle.

    Nohynekin mukaan ei olisi järkevää rokottaa ihmisiä, joiden suoja on jo nyt hyvä ja joilla on hyvä vastustuskyky vakavaa koronatautia vastaan.

    Lisäksi Nohynek muistuttaa, että nykyisten rokotteiden suojateho koronatartuntoja, lievää tautia ja tartuttavuutta vastaan on vain kohtuullinen ja lyhytkestoinen.

    Pfizerin koronarokotteen testauksesta nousi meteli – kohutieto olikin vanhaa
    Pfizerin johdon puheet testeistä herättivät kritiikkiä, mutta tosiasiassa tieto ei ollut uusi.
    https://www.iltalehti.fi/koronavirus/a/4262721c-badd-46e7-a2f0-b9c43e1c8417

    Maanantainen keskustelu koronarokotteista Euroopan unionin parlamentissa on herättänyt närää ja sitä on kutsuttu jopa ”rikolliseksi”, ettei Pfizerin rokotteen tartuntasuojaa testattu ennen myyntiluvan saamista.

    Pfizerin kansainvälisten markkinoiden johtaja Janine Small myönsi hollantilaismepille parlamentissa, ettei lääkeyritys tiennyt myyntiluvan saadessaan, estääkö rokote viruksen leviämisen. Hollannin edustaja Rob Roos suivaantui vastauksesta ja on yhteisöpalvelu Twitterissä kirjoittanut, että ihmiset pakotettiin ottamaan rokotteita valheellisten väitteiden perusteella.

    Vaikka asiasta on puhuttu sosiaalisessa mediassa paljastuksena, ei tieto ole uusi, vahvistaa THL:n ylilääkäri Hanna Nohynek.

    – Kun hätätilakäyttölupaa myyntiluvalle haettiin, priorisoitiin rokotteen turvallisuus ja immunogeenisuus sekä suojateho oireista tautia vastaan, Nohynek sanoo.

    Immunogeenisuus tarkoittaa rokotteen kykyä vaikuttaa elimistön puolustusjärjestelmään

    – Hätätilakäyttöluvan myöntämisen ohessa lääkeyritystä velvoitettiin keräämään jälkikäteen lisätietoja.

    Reply
29. October 14, 2022 at 1:56 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    THL:n uudet ohjeet – seuraavan koronarokotteesi aika voi olla jo nyt: tarkista heti!
    Seuraavaan koronarokotusannoksen voi saada jo kolmen kuukauden kuluttua edellisestä.
    https://www.iltalehti.fi/terveysuutiset/a/9501023d-bd7b-437b-bee2-af5ffd33bf66

    Rekisteröityjen koronatartuntojen määrä on Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitoksen (THL) tiedotteen kasvanut Suomessa maltillisesti syyskuun alusta lukien.

    Viikolla 40 koronatapauksia kirjattiin noin 12 000, kun edellisellä viikolla lukema oli noin 10 000.

    Tartuntatautirekisteriin päätyvät vain laboratoriotestillä todetut koronatartunnat, joten kaikkiaan tartuntoja on enemmän.

    – Tärkeintä on, että jokainen ottaisi suositellut koronarokoteannokset. Rokotteet suojaavat erittäin hyvin vakavalta tautimuodolta, sanoo yksikönpäällikkö, tutkimusprofessori Hannu Kiviranta THL:n tiedotteessa.

    Tällä hetkellä erikoissairaanhoidossa on noin 200 potilasta koronan takia. Tehohoidossa on THL:n mukaan muutama potilas.

    Neljännen rokotuksen aika

    THL suositteli syyskuun lopussa syystalveksi uutta koronan tehosterokotusta kaikille 65 vuotta täyttäneille, 18 vuotta täyttäneille lääketieteellisiin riskiryhmiin kuuluville sekä voimakkaasti immuunipuutteisille 12 vuotta täyttäneille.

    Koronarokotteen tehosterokotteen voi ottaa, kun edellisestä rokotuksesta tai taudin sairastamisesta on kulunut vähintään kolme kuukautta.

    Kunnat vastaavat koronarokotusten järjestämisestä ja kertovat, mistä ja milloin rokotuksen voi saada.

    Syystalven tehosterokote suositellaan otettavaksi samalla kertaa influenssarokotteen kanssa viimeistään joulukuussa.

    Reply
30. October 23, 2022 at 8:10 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Masking the Problem
    Sensors inside this face mask insert ensure a tight fit and proper positioning by using a machine learning classifier.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/masking-the-problem-eefd7331f439

    Face masks can help to protect people from certain types of air pollution and infectious diseases. But a mask is only as good as the fit allows it to be. An out of place or loose mask making poor contact with the skin allows infectious agents and air pollutants to pass freely around the barrier that was designed to stop them.

    The guesswork surrounding mask fit may soon be a thing of the past. A group of engineers at MIT have developed a flexible array of sensors that can be fitted to virtually any face mask. The paper-thin strip of sensors line the inner edges of the mask. 17 capacitive sensors surround the entire device, and ​​temperature, humidity, and air pressure sensors, in addition to an accelerometer are also included. These sensors can be used to determine positioning of the mask on the face with the help of a machine learning classifier, and can also assess environmental variables. Additionally, they make it possible to detect activities like speaking and coughing for more advanced functions.

    MIT engineers develop sensors for face masks that help gauge fit
    https://news.mit.edu/2022/sensors-face-masks-fit-1020

    The system measures biological and environmental changes, and detects contact between the mask and the wearer’s skin.

    Reply
31. November 2, 2022 at 5:28 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    BREAKING: This is a major concern.

    COVID-19 Activates Same Brain Inflammation As In Parkinson’s Disease
    https://www.iflscience.com/covid-19-activates-same-brain-inflammation-as-in-parkinson-s-disease-66014

    The study findings show that COVID-19 affects the brain in a similar way to some dementia diseases.

    Alarming new research from the University of Queensland has found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, activates the same inflammatory processes in the brain as those observed in dementia-related diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The findings might serve as a potential risk indicator for neurodegenerative disorders in people who have had COVID-19 but could also help identify a possible treatment option in the future.

    “We found the cells effectively became ‘angry’, activating the same pathway that Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s proteins can activate in disease, the inflammasomes.”

    This activation then leads to the killing of neuronal brain cells in a chronic and sustained manner over time which can then result in neurological symptoms.

    “It’s kind of a silent killer, because you don’t see any outward symptoms for many years,” said Dr Albornoz Balmaceda, one of the co-authors of the study.

    “It may explain why some people who’ve had COVID-19 are more vulnerable to developing neurological symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease.”

    COVID-19 has brought with it many unknowns, one being how the disease affects the brain in the long run. What we now refer to as long COVID certainly involves a neurological aspect, with many reports of brain fog, smell and taste difficulties, sleep and mood problems, and fatigue persisting long after initial infections.

    The latest study builds on our understanding and suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can directly interact with microglia which, in turn, can activate what researchers call the NLRP3 inflammasome response in the brain. This pathway is commonly activated in patients with neurogenerative diseases and may contribute to the disease state over time.

    “So if someone is already pre-disposed to Parkinson’s, having COVID-19 could be like pouring more fuel on that ‘fire’ in the brain,”

    “The same would apply for a predisposition for Alzheimer’s and other dementias that have been linked to inflammasomes.”

    Interestingly, what the study authors went on to test was if current inflammatory inhibitory drugs that are being tested in clinical trials could be used to block this inflammation caused by COVID-19.

    “We found it successfully blocked the inflammatory pathway activated by COVID-19, essentially putting out the fire,”

    Reply
32. November 6, 2022 at 8:20 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    The research adds to a growing list of concerns about the long-lasting impact of COVID-19 on the body and brain.

    Recovered COVID Patients May Have Significantly Reduced Intelligence, Suggests Large Study
    https://www.iflscience.com/recovered-covid-patients-may-have-significantly-reduced-intelligence-suggests-large-study-60465

    People who have previously been infected with COVID-19 and recovered may have significantly reduced intelligence, suggests a new study published in EClinicalMedicine. The research adds to a growing list of concerns about the long-lasting impact of COVID-19 on the body and brain, and suggests that long-term studies should begin immediately to assess just how severe the effects could be.

    Reply
33. November 17, 2022 at 9:07 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Näitä sairauksia koronaan kuolleilla on ollut – alle 60-vuotiailla ylivoimainen yhdistävä tekijä
    Koronaan kuolleiden mediaani-ikä on nyt 85 vuotta. Yleensä potilaalla on ollut monia muitakin sairauksia kuin koronainfektio.
    https://www.iltalehti.fi/terveysuutiset/a/e327547a-4f83-4e31-a8c4-92527cfc61c9

    Reply
34. December 5, 2022 at 5:31 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://www.iflscience.com/six-common-covid-myths-busted-by-a-virologist-and-a-public-health-expert-66486

    Reply
35. December 6, 2022 at 12:20 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Strange COVID-19 Symptoms Affecting People’s Fingers, Toes, And Even Tongues
    “COVID toes” is the latest strange symptom coming from the coronavirus.
    https://www.iflscience.com/strange-covid-19-symptoms-affecting-people-s-fingers-toes-and-even-tongues-66508

    In a symptom progression that looks extremely similar to chilblains, the virus appears to be collecting in tissue away from the typical lungs and respiratory tract, causing an aggressive immune response.

    Reply
36. December 6, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Researchers have developed an energy-harvesting sensor device capable of detecting coronavirus particles and droplets and communicating a warning — working entirely without batteries.

    This Vibrating Metal Plate Sends Out a Wireless Warning of Coronavirus Exposure — Without Batteries
    Generating energy as it vibrates, this metal plate changes its resonance frequency in response to coronavirus exposure.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/this-vibrating-metal-plate-sends-out-a-wireless-warning-of-coronavirus-exposure-without-batteries-ce51016a2569

    Reply
37. December 9, 2022 at 10:54 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    “Hiljattain julkaistu tutkimus arvostetussa Lancet-tiedelehdessä arvioi, että 4,5 prosenttia omikronin sairastaneista rokotetuista sairastui pitkäkestoiseen koronaan. Pienikin prosenttiosuus koronaviruksen sairastaneista tai väestöstä tarkoittaa vähintään kymmeniätuhansia suomalaisia.”

    Pitkäkestoinen koronavirustauti on merkittävä kansanterveysongelma
    Pienikin prosenttiosuus koronaviruksen sairastaneista tai väestöstä tarkoittaa vähintään kymmeniätuhansia suomalaisia.
    https://www.hs.fi/mielipide/art-2000009251065.html

    Reply
38. December 17, 2022 at 6:11 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Designed for one-handed use in-the-field, this compact thermal camera uses a 0.19″ OLED display drawing just 5mW.

    This Tiny No-Contact Thermal Camera with Near-Eye Micro-OLED Display Scans for COVID-19 Infections
    https://www.hackster.io/news/this-tiny-no-contact-thermal-camera-with-near-eye-micro-oled-display-scans-for-covid-19-infections-572674e226ff

    Designed for one-handed use in-the-field, this compact thermal camera uses a 0.19″ OLED display drawing just 5mW.

    Reply
39. January 7, 2023 at 4:57 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Rising Risks with COVID Reinfection
    https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/12/covid-reinfection

    Reply
40. January 12, 2023 at 2:48 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Yksityisiltä koronarokotuksia
    https://yle.fi/a/74-20012604?origin=rss

    Reply
41. January 13, 2023 at 9:24 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://time.com/6246525/bivalent-booster-not-very-effective-paul-offit/

    Jos uskaltaa niin voi Twitterissä seurata hästägiä diedsuddenly, turha yrittää täällä fbsensuurissa…

    #PfizerFiles toimii täälläkin

    Reply
42. January 13, 2023 at 10:47 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    THL:”Kraken”-korona saapui Suomeen – ensimmäinen havainto varmistettu
    Suomesta on tehty ensimmäinen havainto uudesta omikron-koronan alalinjasta XBB.1.5, kertoo THL.
    https://www.iltalehti.fi/terveysuutiset/a/a05597b6-9784-45b6-be69-52a36b1f0a7b

    Suomessa on tehty ensimmäinen havainto koronaviruksen omikronvariantin XBB.1.5 -alalinjan viruksista. Asiasta tiedottaa Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos (THL).

    Kyseinen omikronmuunnos on myös saanut lempinimen ”Kraken”. Muunnos tarttuu erittäin herkästi.

    Muunnosta havaittiin ensimmäisen kerran lokakuussa 2022 Yhdysvalloissa, jossa se on levinnyt voimakkaasti.

    Sen jälkeen sitä havaittu myös Iso-Britanniassa sekä useissa EU/ETA-alueen maissa.

    – Oli odotettavissa, että kyseistä virusmuunnosta löytyy ennen pitkää myös Suomesta. XBB.1.5-alalinjan virusten arvioidaan tarttuvan herkästi, ja kuten tällä hetkellä Suomessa kiertävät omikron variantit, XBB.1.5 väistää tehokkaasti immuunisuojaa, sanoo THL:n johtava asiantuntija Carita Savolainen-Kopra tiedotteessa.

    Reply
43. January 19, 2023 at 6:58 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Uutta tietoa koronarokotuksen ja sydänlihastulehduksen yhteydestä – sairastuneista 90 prosenttia oli miehiä https://www.is.fi/terveys/art-2000009336623.html

    Tuore meta-analyysi osoittaa, että koronarokotukseen liittyvä sydänlihastulehdusriski on pieni ja tapaukset harvoin vakavia.
    JOIDENKIN tutkimusten perusteella nuoret potilaat saavat tavallista enemmän sydänlihastulehduksia koronarokotuksen jälkeen, mutta tuoreen meta-analyysitutkimuksen mukaan tuo riski on hyvin pieni. Tulehdukset ovat myös yleensä lieviä ja edellyttävät vain muutaman päivän sairaalahoitoa.

    Sairastuneista 90 prosenttia oli miespuolisia ja 74 prosenttia sydänlihastulehduksista todettiin toisen koronarokotuksen jälkeen.

    Suurin osa tapauksista oli lieviä ja vasemman sydänkammion vajaatoimintaa havaittiin vain 16 prosentilla potilaista. Ainoastaan 1,3 prosentin vajaatoiminta oli huomattavaa.

    Lähes 93 prosenttia potilaista tarvitsi sairaalahoitoa ja 23 prosenttia ohjattiin teho-osastolle. Tästä huolimatta vain hieman yli prosentti potilaista tarvitsi sydänlihaksen supistusvoimaa lisäävää lääkitystä. Yksikään potilas ei kuollut tai tarvinnut hengityskonetta ja sairaalahoidot kestivät keskimäärin hieman alle kolme vuorokautta.

    Koronavirusinfektion jälkeen sydänlihastulehdukseen sairastuu noin 11 potilasta sadastatuhannesta, mikä on selvästi enemmän kuin rokotuksen jälkeen, jolloin sairastuu keskimäärin vain kolme sadastatuhannesta.

    Reply
44. January 21, 2023 at 12:14 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    AI System Can Predict COVID-19 Outbreaks Up To Six Weeks In Advance
    A machine learning approach might become an important tool in pandemic preparation.
    https://www.iflscience.com/ai-system-can-predict-covid-19-outbreaks-up-to-six-weeks-in-advance-67152

    Scientists in the United States have developed a machine learning algorithm that can predict a surge of COVID-19 cases at county level across the US, in the vast majority of cases. Such a tool could have a powerful impact in protecting people, and let healthcare systems prepare up to six weeks before a major outbreak.

    Reply
45. January 25, 2023 at 12:56 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tällaisia ovat koronan sitkeät oireet – yleisiä erityisesti yhdellä ryhmällä https://www.is.fi/terveys/art-2000009346627.html

    Tulosten perusteella riski sairastua maku- ja hajuaistin heikkenemiseen oli noin neljä kertaa suurempi lievän koronavirusinfektion sairastaneilla infektiota seuraavien kuukausien sekä 6–12 kuukauden kuluttua. Myös keskittymisvaikeudet, muistiongelmat, hengitysvaikeudet, heikotus, sydämentykytys ja jossain määrin myös huimaus ja streptokokin aiheuttamat nielurisatulehdukset olivat heillä yleisempiä.

    Lisäksi osalla potilaista havaittiin hiustenlähtöä, rintakipuja, yskää, lihassärkyjä ja hengitysoireyhtymiä, mutta näiden riski oli suurentunut vain koronainfektiota seuraavien lähikuukausien ajan.

    Reply
46. February 4, 2023 at 3:14 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Koronan pitkäaikaisoireita hoitava ylilääkäri: Onko nykyihmisellä enää aikaa parantua tällaisesta?
    Näyttää siltä, että koronavirus häiritsee hermoston toimintaa aivojen stressijärjestelmien virittymisen kautta. Pitkäaikaisoireista kärsivän on tärkeää saada rauhoittua.
    https://yle.fi/a/74-20016280

    Reply
47. February 8, 2023 at 12:05 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Maskit vähentävät tartuntoja vähän tai eivät ollenkaan, näytön taso kohtalainen
    Luotettavimpana pidetty tutkimuskatsaus löysi enemmän näyttöä käsien pesun vaikuttavuudesta.
    https://www.hs.fi/tiede/art-2000009375500.html

    MASKIT vähentävät koronataudin, influenssan ja niiden kaltaisten hengitystieinfektioiden leviämistä väestössä vähän tai eivät ollenkaan.

    Tämä oli tulos parhaan tutkimustiedon yhteen vetäneessä Cochrane-katsauksessa, joka julkaistiin viime viikon lopussa.

    Kirurginmaskien ja N95-maskien tehossa ei näkynyt eroa esimerkiksi hoitoalan työntekijöillä, jotka käyttivät maskeja potilaita kohdatessaan.

    TARTUNTOJEN torjuntaa käsittelevä päivitetty katsaus käsitti kaikkiaan 78 satunnaistettua, kontrolloitua tutkimusta.

    Käsien pesun vaikuttavuus on satunnaistettujen tutkimusten perusteella tartuntojen torjunnassa suurempi kuin maskien. Käsihygienian parantaminen vähensi hengitystieinfektioita 14 prosentilla verrokkeihin nähden.

    Johtopäätös oli, että tiuhemmasta käsienpesusta on todennäköisesti jonkin verran hyötyä tartuntojen jarruttamisessa.

    COCHRANE-katsauksilla on maine näyttöön perustuvan lääketieteen luotettavimpana perustana.

    NÄYTTÖ maskien tehottomuudesta arvioitiin nyt päivitetyssä katsauksessa kohtalaiseksi.

    Tiedossa on edelleen epävarmuutta esimerkiksi siksi, että maski-interventioiden osallistujat eivät usein käyttäneet maskeja kuuliaisesti eivätkä ohjeiden mukaisesti. Niin he eivät tosin tee tosielämässäkään.

    Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses
    https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

    Background
    Viral epidemics or pandemics of acute respiratory infections (ARIs) pose a global threat. Examples are influenza (H1N1) caused by the H1N1pdm09 virus in 2009, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) caused by SARS‐CoV‐2 in 2019. Antiviral drugs and vaccines may be insufficient to prevent their spread. This is an update of a Cochrane Review last published in 2020. We include results from studies from the current COVID‐19 pandemic.

    Objectives
    To assess the effectiveness of physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of acute respiratory viruses.

    Reply
48. February 9, 2023 at 5:33 am

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tässä on mielenkiintoinen arvio siitä, miksi liian yleisluontoiset tutkimukset maskien koronatartuntoja ehkäisevästä vaikutuksesta eivät anna hyviä tuloksia. Ongelman ytimessä on se, että tutkimuksissa ei varsinaisesti tutkita maskien käyttämisen vaikutusta, vaan sen vaikutusta, että ihmisiä ohjeistetaan käyttämään maskeja. Varsinainen toteutunut käyttö on vaihtelevaa.

    Yes, masks reduce the risk of spreading COVID, despite a review saying they don’t
    https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992

    The question of whether and to what extent face masks work to prevent respiratory infections such as COVID and influenza has split the scientific community for decades.

    Although there is strong evidence face masks significantly reduce transmission of such infections both in health-care settings and in the community, some experts do not agree.

    An updated Cochrane Review published last week is the latest to suggest face masks don’t work in the community.

    But RCTs are only the undisputed gold standard for certain kinds of questions. For other questions, a mix of study designs is better. And RCTs should be combined in a meta-analysis only if they are all addressing the same research question in the same way.

    Here are some reasons why the conclusions of this Cochrane Review are misleading.

    It didn’t consider how COVID spreads and how masks work

    COVID, along with influenza and many other respiratory diseases, is transmitted primarily through the air.

    Respirators (such as N95s) are designed and regulated to prevent airborne infections by fitting closely to the face to prevent air leakage and by filtering out 95% or more of potential infectious particles.

    In contrast, surgical masks are designed to prevent splatter of fluid on the face and are loose-fitting, causing unfiltered air to leak in through the gaps around the mask. The filtration of a surgical mask is not regulated.

    In other words, respirators are designed for respiratory protection and cloth and surgical masks are not.

    The studies addressed quite different questions

    This Cochrane Review combined RCTs where face masks or respirators were worn part of the time (for example, when caring for patients with known COVID or influenza: “occasional” or “targeted” use) with RCTs where they were worn at all times (“continuous use”).

    Because both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses are airborne, an unmasked person could be infected anywhere in the building and even after an infectious patient has left the room, especially since some people have no symptoms while contagious.

    Reply
49. February 11, 2023 at 10:10 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    ”Hullun mielenkiintoinen” löytö ihmiskeuhkoista voi auttaa selittämään yksilöllisiä eroja koronataudin vakavuudessa
    https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/hullun-mielenkiintoinen-loyto-ihmiskeuhkoista-voi-auttaa-selittamaan-yksilollisia-eroja-koronataudin-vakavuudessa/

    Australialaistutkijat ovat löytäneet ihmisen keuhkoista uuden Sars-Cov-2-virusta vastaan taistelevan proteiinin, joka saattaa määrittää, kuka sairastuu koronatautiin vakavasti ja kuka lievästi.

    Sydneyn yliopiston tutkijat raportoivat löydöistään perjantaina PLOS Biology -tiedelehdessä, ja aiheesta uutisoi The Guardian.

    ‘Crazy interesting’ findings by Australian researchers may reveal key to Covid immunity
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/09/crazy-interesting-findings-by-australian-researchers-may-reveal-key-to-covid-immunity

    University of Sydney scientists have found a receptor protein which ‘acts a bit like molecular velcro, in that it sticks to the spike of the virus’

    Reply
50. May 6, 2023 at 12:19 pm

    Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nyt loppui hätätila – WHO:n julistus asettaa koronan muiden isojen terveysuhkien rinnalle, ei enää muiden yli.

    WHO julisti koronan aiheuttaman terveyshätätilan
    https://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/a/82ec9ff8-9a8c-40b2-98ff-4a3593343fea

    päättyneeksi – Hanna Nohynek: ”Korona on edelleen uhka”
    Maailman terveysjärjestö WHO on julistanut Covid-19-viruksen aiheuttaman maailmanlaajuisen terveyshätätilan päättyneeksi.

    Reply